Australian advertisers put roughly A$200 million of first-half 2026 TV spend behind commercials with no closed captions, out of about A$1 billion in broadcast spend. With one in five Australians deaf or hard of hearing and sound-off viewing now the norm, uncaptioned ads quietly waste reach that is already paid for.
The Take: Australian advertisers spent roughly A$200 million in the first half of 2026 on television ads a large slice of the audience could not follow. Not because the creative was weak. Because no one switched the captions on. This is a quiet own goal, and it is entirely fixable.
The numbers: At the MFA EX event in Sydney, EssenceMediacom head of strategy Marine Turner put A$200 million of first-half 2026 TV spend at risk because the ads lacked closed captions, out of about A$1 billion in broadcast spend over the same period. One in five Australians is deaf or hard of hearing, and that share of the audience was handed an ad it could not access. On a A$1 billion base, a fifth of the spend is landing on people who cannot hear a word of it.
The local angle: Captions are not a niche accommodation any more. B&T reported that 39% of the general population and 68% of 18 to 34s use captions when they watch video, disability or not. Sound-off viewing is the default on a train, in an open-plan office, in bed beside a sleeping partner. An ad with no captions goes silent the moment the volume does, and most of the time the volume is already off. Deafness Forum Australia has made this point for years, and the media dollars say the industry still is not listening.
Australian TV ad spend in the first half of 2026 on commercials that lacked closed captions
The counter: The usual objection is cost and time. Captioning a finished commercial is a small production step measured in hours, not a reshoot. Set against the media dollars already committed behind the spot, it is the cheapest performance lift on the table. Every uncaptioned asset is reach you bought and then threw away at the final metre. The waste is not the caption. It is running the spot without one.
For Australian operators: Make closed captions a non-negotiable line in the creative brief, not a post-production afterthought. Audit your current library and caption anything still in rotation. Ask your agency to prove every deliverable ships captioned before it reaches air. You have already paid for the reach. Let the whole audience receive it.